Evaluation of models to estimate urinary nitrogen and expected milk urea nitrogen

Milk urea nitrogen (MUN) has been introduced as a means to estimate urinary nitrogen (N) excretion and protein status of dairy cattle. For Holstein cows, the amount of urinary N excreted (g/d) was originally reported to be 12.54 x MUN (mg/dl), but recently urinary N (g/d) was reported to equal 17.64 x MUN (mg/dl). The objectives of the present study were to evaluate models to predict urinary N and expected MUN, by using older and newer data sets, and to quantify changes that may have occurred in MUN measurements over time. Two data sets were used for model evaluation. Data set 1 was from the spring of 1998 and data set 2 was from the spring of 1999. Similar cows and diets were used in both studies. By using data set 1, the newer model underestimated MUN by an average of 3.8 mg/dl, whereas the older model was accurate. By using data set 2, the older model overestimated MUN by 4.8 mg/ dl, but the newer model was accurate. In the period between the two studies, the MUN measured appeared to decrease by an average of 4.0 mg/dl. By using current wet chemistry methods to analyze for MUN, urinary N (mg/dl) can be predicted as 0.026 x MUN (mg/dl) x body weight (kg). Because of changes in methodology that occurred in the fall of 1998, target MUN concentrations have decreased to 8.5 to 11.5 mg/dl for most dairy herds compared with previous target concentrations of 12 to 16 mg/dl.